I also wonder whether there's some in-world technological reason the space suit has to be corset-tight. That looks really uncomfortable and restrictive. I mean, all things being equal, why would anyone wear a suit that tight to adventure in?

Probably the same reason a lot of workout clothing is skintight; it stays out of the way. Loose clothing can get caught on things, or be used against you by an opponent. It can also rub and chafe during extended activity. Tight material across the chest could serve the same purpose as a sports bra, which is definitely something Lirianne appears to need. That much weight bouncing around freely would be painful and distracting. Sometimes, restrictive is a good thing.

As long as it is sufficiently flexible to allow movement - and offers enough protection - skintight is actually a great choice. Of course, for many of the same reasons, she should probably cut her hair, or at least tie it up in a way that's not so easy to grab and pull. And that scarf isn't a great idea either....

Other than that, I agree with many of the criticisms in this thread. The pose used is a fairly common one in fantasy and sci-fi art, and it does tend to look awkward and unrealistic unless the artist is very careful. Since the pose pretty much only exists to increase the sexualization of the character, it's usually a better choice to pick another pose rather than try to make this one work.

I still like the art, though.

That spacesuit isn't sportsbra tight. It's tighter. It individually, separately defines each breast. So, in that sense, it doesn't get anything at all out of the way. That fact, coupled with the strange pose, makes her look all wrong for adventuring. Just sayin'.

To be fair, the level of definition on the breasts is a function of both tightness and flexibility of the material. The right material might actually look like that when worn at the correct tension, especially if the tension was different from area to area (some compression clothes today do this). Clearly this is some kind of futuristic material designed to support, protect, and show off the body.

But in general, yeah, it looks a bit strange, especially when combined with the pose.

Basically, when it says that everyone loves Shelyn, does that mean that the Church of Shelyn believes that everyone loves her, or is it an actual "law of divine physics" or something?

That's the viewpoint of Shelyn's church. It's not the viewpoint of an unbiased impartial existence. It's not a divine law.

That said, deities break rules. It can be both incorrect and correct at the same time, in other words. It doesn't have to follow the rules of logic.

Good to know. Is that true of most/all of the information in the Deity articles, or are there parts that are intended to be facts?

Since I'm usually the GM for our group, I'm accustomed to reading things like adventures and campaign setting books, where the curtain is often pulled back and I can treat the presented information as fact (unless I want to alter it, of course). It's a bit of a challenge to shift my thinking away from that mindset. I guess as the GM, whichever parts I like best are facts. :P

Super excited for the mysterious avenger. I know a certain Curse of the Crimson Throne character who will be getting a rebuild before I run that campaign.

Stephen Radney-MacFarland wrote:

unless the wizard decides to do her a solid

Is that...actually something people say? I'm far too young to feel that out of touch. :P

Suma3da wrote:

Hmm...I hope the Gunslinger heavy version of Swashie comes back into play as an archetype.

The Gunslinger heavy version is the one they kept. The Fighter heavy one got tossed before the playtest, though I wouldn't be surprised if some parts of it are still around (or get put into archetypes).

A very good morning to you, I was just looking at the Shelyn writeup where it says

Quote:

Shelyn is in a unique position among

the deities in that everyone loves her and
wishes to please her...

And then goes into the various ways that the different deities might want to pay court. I was just wanting to know if this applied to ascetic deities as well, such as Irori, and what form the affection of a deity who disdain's worldly connections might take.

There is probably a religious text involved somewhere here. The 99 temptations of the Master or something.

prototype00

It does indeed apply to them, although it might not be a two-way street. The religious teachings of one deity don't have to be fact or true for another, and there are absolutely contradictions.

This statement has got me wondering. I had always viewed the whole "everyone loves Shelyn" thing as more of an inherent property of being a goddess of love, rather than as one of her teachings (or those of her church). I would contrast this with the idea of Calistria having slept with many other deities, which definitely comes across as rumor rather than fact.

In the various deity articles, is there any sort of line drawn (if not explicitly, then at least behind the scenes) between things that are fact versus things that are taught by specific deities or believed by their worshipers? Or is that left intentionally vague?

Basically, when it says that everyone loves Shelyn, does that mean that the Church of Shelyn believes that everyone loves her, or is it an actual "law of divine physics" or something?

Or, to make things more confusing, it is possible the contradictory teachings from different deities can all be true, despite apparent impossibilities? They are gods, after all.

*As a side note/response to the original question*: The idea of Irori loving Shelyn doesn't seem particularly strange or contradictory to me. Irori has never come across as uncaring, but rather as believing in individual self perfection. I would expect his love towards Shelyn to manifest as that of a patient teacher, encouraging her to improve herself at every opportunity.

I also wonder whether there's some in-world technological reason the space suit has to be corset-tight. That looks really uncomfortable and restrictive. I mean, all things being equal, why would anyone wear a suit that tight to adventure in?

Probably the same reason a lot of workout clothing is skintight; it stays out of the way. Loose clothing can get caught on things, or be used against you by an opponent. It can also rub and chafe during extended activity. Tight material across the chest could serve the same purpose as a sports bra, which is definitely something Lirianne appears to need. That much weight bouncing around freely would be painful and distracting. Sometimes, restrictive is a good thing.

As long as it is sufficiently flexible to allow movement - and offers enough protection - skintight is actually a great choice. Of course, for many of the same reasons, she should probably cut her hair, or at least tie it up in a way that's not so easy to grab and pull. And that scarf isn't a great idea either....

Other than that, I agree with many of the criticisms in this thread. The pose used is a fairly common one in fantasy and sci-fi art, and it does tend to look awkward and unrealistic unless the artist is very careful. Since the pose pretty much only exists to increase the sexualization of the character, it's usually a better choice to pick another pose rather than try to make this one work.

First-off, The Redemption Engine kicks all kinds of ass. The combination of Kaer Maga and the Outer Planes (especially as a reflection/explanation of each-other) was just so smart, and I've never read better explanations as to alignments. All of this coupled with a fun story and some exceedingly memorable characters!

Anyways, I did have a question: I'm curious as to your opinion on the life-cycle of petitioners, especially in regards to the "have no memories of their previous life" aspect. For more info see JJ's post or the Bestiary 2 entry.

To me it seems odd that a petitioner has no memory of their previous life. Their entire existence in the Outer Planes is affected by this: which court in the Boneyard claims them, what Plane they end up on, and - in most circumstances - what their physical form will look like.

Doesn't this lack of memories undermine the specialness of the rewards or punishments that await the soul? All those horrible tortures in Hell based on the specific nature of the mortal's crimes seem far less horrible when the soul in question doesn't actually remember committing those acts. There's no way for the soul to feel guilt, remorse, or any of those other lovely feelings that require memories.

Also, if this information were to leak somehow into the mortal world, wouldn't it cheapen the rewards/lessen the fear of the afterlife? Depending on what you consider a person (how much of it is their memory), I'm sure Evil-aligned people could easily justify their actions with saying: "Well, I won't remember this when I'm dead, so it won't really be me suffering for it in Hell/Abaddon/The Abyss."

Thanks for asking this. I've wanted to ask similar questions for a while, but I haven't gotten around to typing them up yet.

If I had to guess, I'd say the other store probably still has the placeholder cover art displayed online. The books should be identical, though. I don't think Paizo prints multiple covers for their adventures.

Correct. (We did do alternate covers for GenCon releases of Pathfinder #1 and Pathfinder #13, but we don't do them anymore.)

I always wondered why there seemed to be two different versions of those when I looked on Amazon. That explains it!

Kytons are probably my favorite evil outsider race (does that make me weird?). I loved the full writeup for the Ostiarius Kytons in Shattered Star, and I want to see more stuff like that. What are your thoughts on a campaign setting book about Kytons?

I noticed that Mummy's Mask books 3 through 6 are on another online store with different cover art. Is there any difference in content, and what's the reasoning behind the different covers? The store has books 1 and 2 with the same art that Paizo has.

If I had to guess, I'd say the other store probably still has the placeholder cover art displayed online. The books should be identical, though. I don't think Paizo prints multiple covers for their adventures.

I love the research rules in this book so much. I think I'm going to try using them in my Rise of the Runelords game (in the Jorgenfist library, to begin with). If that works, I might add more libraries for research later in the game, since there's a fair amount of hidden knowledge to acquire in that AP.

I also love:

Spoilers for Shifting Sands:

The methods suggested for locating the final wing of the library. The idea of building a scale model of the tower and adding it to the model of the city is cliche in all the right ways. Gives the adventure a fantastic Indiana Jones vibe.

Before this adventure, I had happily categorized this AP as "fun to read, but I probably won't run it", which is my favorite category of AP, since it wouldn't compete for time with all the others I want to run. Now that I've read this one, though, I keep looking at my shelf wondering what I can cut/delay in order to run this....

Man, this makes me wish I had been crazy enough to pledge that much money to the kickstarter. :P I wouldn't even have to drive hundreds of miles! And of course I'm out of town for Paizocon, so I can't hope to join the game there either. Maybe next year.

I have a party of 6 players, so I use the excellent 6 player conversions available on these very forums. Despite this, my party tends to steamroll through a lot of encounters. Through clever sleight of hand, I actually managed to make them scared enough of Vordakai and his minions that they didn't notice they were mostly steamrollering this dungeon as well, with the exception of when Feyla was drained to 1 wisdom by a trap followed by soul eaters. The party managed to repair that damage by barricading themselves in a stairwell overnight while the Wizard teleported himself and Feyla home for healing.

So when they reached Vordakai's room, they were properly terrified that they would be killed. They buffed themselves thoroughly and headed in. The 6 player conversion suggests putting a Graveknight Antipaladin with Vordakai, so I did just that. The Wizard put up a Wall of Force to separate big V from the fight, and the lich was arrogant enough to sit and watch for a few rounds (his casual attitude towards the wall probably scared my players more than any spell he could have cast). The Graveknight started by attacking the rogue, since she was the first into the room, but then Feyla charged in and layed down the smiting. The Graveknight's next turn consisted of smite good plus a full attack on Feyla. Only one attack hit, but it was a critical. 110 points of damage later, Feyla was packing her bags to visit Sarenrae. The party's bard was lucky enough to be carrying a scroll of Breath of Life, though, so Feyla lived to fight another day.

This is my first PC death in a very long time, so I think I accomplished my goal of making the Vordakai fight feel like a major accomplishment. The funny thing is, I actually forgot to apply the smite bonuses and the additional fire damage from the Graveknight's weapon. If I had remembered those, Breath of Life might not have been sufficient for her to become conscious again.

Pally drops a spell I totally forgot about on the presmitten dragon called Litany of Righteousness. Yeah, if you don't know about that spell, and you have a pally in your group, go take a look at it. I'll wait.

Did you take into consideration that Litany takes a full round to cast?

Was the dragon a spellcaster? Did he identify the spell being cast on him? He should fly right away with a litany and a curse on him, debuff himself, and just breath on them every other d4 rounds.
Unless the dragon was really cocky and was nearly at full health.

Let me add this though,
That was pretty epic and i bet the players had fun. Good job!

Litany of Righteousness ISN'T such a great spell actually, I think there was a misplay here since this spell has a 1 round duration. I doubt your dragon would have taken as much dmg taking that into consideration.

All that damage seems to have happened in a single round, so the spell would have worked for all of it.

I also have a Paladin in my party for this campaign, and he definitely took out that dragon fast. Against evil creatures, Paladins are pretty much insane.

The real question is: when do we get a "Lords of Madness" book in this style? This books sounds awesome and all, but I want more info for Aboleths and other awesome aberrations!

From the Department of Expectation Management:

This book is not going to be a "Lords of Madness" style book in the first place. It's going to be a lot closer to NPC Codex. It's not going to have a lot of in-depth world content; it's a world-neutal book that focuses pretty heavilly on stat blocks and rules, not so much on ecologies and the like... there'll be some elements of that in here, but if you're looking for that kind of info, we've already published books for these monsters in the various Revisited books.

Thanks for the clarification! I still want a book like this one about Abberations, though. :P

And a true "Lords of Madness" type of book would be awesome too, but I don't think I need to tell you that.

If you're actually curious, the reason it doesn't count as price-collusion is that they don't control the supply, and they can't actually force the price to be that high. If you or I wanted to sell our copies for $20, they couldn't stop us. They're also probably not actually colluding. So in this case it's just regular old market forces making prices silly.

Not even that. What I'm saying is someone who isn't even optimized has a 50/50 shot of starting an encounter from that far of the distance. And yeah, any idiot can come up with scenarios and tricks to confound the range issues or have the HP to survive an attack from ranged combatants. This doesn't address the issue that most desert combats are going to have far more ranged fights that any other. Using monsters at low level that can survive and attack and move fast are not always what's written into the AP; Legacy of Fire sure isn't written that way at all. I'm not talking about what a DM can come up on their own to deal with deserts, I'm talking about the need to address a possible issue that may play out in a desert themed AP, as its written.

I know this is a few months old at this point, but I just wanted to mention that the DC of 21 is only for the distance. That assumes that the enemies are just standing out in the open, charging wildly across the dunes, or something similar. Add stealth checks to the mix, and the difficulty of spotting the enemies goes way up. Even an untrained character with no bonuses or penalties to stealth will add an average of 10 to the Perception DC. At that point, even your Zen Archer has less than a 50% chance of spotting them at that distance.

Downloaded my PDF today. This book brings me so much happy! I was never particularly excited by Gods or divine classes when I played in other settings, but somehow the Golarion pantheon is a never ending source of enjoyment to me. I actually want to play religious characters in Pathfinder!

I don't suppose you guys would be interested in selling prints of these? I would love to have some awesome Pathfinder art on my wall.

Mikaze wrote:

MrVergee wrote:

I had been wondering lately when the art department would finally get some of its well-deserved time in the spotlight. We've been getting so much wonderful art from Paizo, that we're totally and utterly spoiled, while I don't really know who at Paizo deserves (at least part of) the credit for this. And it's not just the art work, but the complete lay-out of the modules and books that is just fantastic. You guys come up with amazing covers for the AP's as well, that mark these products as top of the bill! I'm very excited to see that you'll be getting a monthly blog. And even if you guys don't draw the art yourselves, do know that the extraordinary quality of your work defines Paizo products as the best in the market. So, a big thank you!

PS: I would be interested in seeing how you guys put together the cover of a product or even how you integrate art in the text on a page, or the tricks you have to pull to make the text fit a page. Maybe we can see some examples of your technical brilliance in a future post.

PM sent. I just figured I would note this so that you don't get 5 other people sending you a PM on the subject.

Thanks! I actually wouldn't mind if other people PMed me. I have seen that item, but it's been a while (it was probably in my first hour or so of voting), so if anyone has the full description, I'd love to see it. I'd also be interested to see if other people are thinking of the same item. I don't remember the description of that one very well, but I don't think it struck me as particularly "intimate", or otherwise 50 Shades like. I might have been too hung up on the title to notice.

Of course, I haven't actually read 50 Shades. I have read Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel series, though, so maybe my Kink-o-Meter is calibrated differently from other people in the thread. :P

I've now heard from two different people, and gotten 3 different suggestions of what item people are referring to. At least one of them seemed likely, but apparently it isn't completely obvious.

When I re-read my quoted post, it got me wondering what I would expect if someone said they had seen a Kushiel's Dart item. Naturally, I had to make one. I only spent like 10 minutes on it, so it probably has some glaring flaws, but it was a fun exercise.

Any time the wearer takes damage (including ability damage) or is targeted by a pain effect, she gains a +2 morale bonus to Saving Throws and Charisma-based skill checks for one round as ecstasy ripples through her. If the damage taken is from a bleed effect, this bonus increases by 1.

PM sent. I just figured I would note this so that you don't get 5 other people sending you a PM on the subject.

Thanks! I actually wouldn't mind if other people PMed me. I have seen that item, but it's been a while (it was probably in my first hour or so of voting), so if anyone has the full description, I'd love to see it. I'd also be interested to see if other people are thinking of the same item. I don't remember the description of that one very well, but I don't think it struck me as particularly "intimate", or otherwise 50 Shades like. I might have been too hung up on the title to notice.

Of course, I haven't actually read 50 Shades. I have read Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel series, though, so maybe my Kink-o-Meter is calibrated differently from other people in the thread. :P

Hey, I finally caught up on this thread. That's what I get for not starting to vote until after the cull, I guess.

I've seen a lot of the items mentioned in this thread, both good and bad. Still haven't seen the 50 Shades item(s?), and I'm kind of curious. Anyone want to PM me the name of the item (or the whole thing, if you have it)?

I'm kind of glad I didn't end up entering this year; I was going to submit a lantern that affected undead. :P

Well, regardless of our individual preferences for frozen water (my preference is for it to be in my drink and nowhere else), the Mummy's Mask Adventure Path will not feature snow on a sphinx unless a PC makes that happen. Consider this something to add to your player's achievement board. ;)

I had pretty much decided that a Winter Witch wouldn't be a good choice for this AP. You have convinced me otherwise.

I think it's important for Clerics, too. My Clerics all try to use their gods' favored weapons. But if it's not a very combat-oriented weapon I focus on something other than rolling attack rolls. But since the Warpriest is all about rolling attack rolls, I'd like to be able to do that with the favored weapon without *too* much of a handicap for a non-martial weapon.

I can't believe you just said that if your deity doesn't have a good favored weapon, you focus on doing something else.

I don't wanna drop the wall of text explaining why the Warpriest shouldn't be 100% focused on his Favored Weapon. But heres the TLDR.

Warpriest- As a member of the holy warriors, due note that the Paladin, Inquisitor, and Cleric all don't heavily depend on their favored weapon to function in combat.

Favored Weapons- Close to no explanation is actually given for a Deity's Favored Weapon. Examples of those choices being meaningful actually tell us not to use them, or to use other weapons in combat. I find it hard to believe they're a central point to your roleplaying.

Diseases, poisons, spells, and other abilities can all deal damage directly to your ability scores. This damage does not actually reduce an ability, but it does apply a penalty to the skills and statistics that are based on that ability.

For every 2 points of damage you take to a single ability, apply a –1 penalty to skills and statistics listed with the relevant ability.

That's pretty explicit.

Because the FAQ is clearing up pretty much the same wording, except for bonuses instead of damage. Carrying Capacity isn't explicitly stated to increase with temporary Str bonuses, like Rage, nor is it stated to decrease with damage (it just exchanges the word bonus for penalty and then has the same examples).

Quote:

Temporary Bonuses: Temporary increases to your Strength score give you a bonus on Strength-based skill checks, melee attack rolls, and weapon damage rolls (if they rely on Strength). The bonus also applies to your Combat Maneuver Bonus (if you are Small or larger) and to your Combat Maneuver Defense.

...

Ability Damage: Damage to your Strength score causes you to take penalties on Strength-based skill checks, melee attack rolls, and weapon damage rolls (if they rely on Strength). The Ability Damage penalty also applies to your Combat Maneuver Bonus (if you are Small or larger) and your Combat Maneuver Defense. See Ability Score Damage below.

I figure the FAQ clears that up all around, since "statistics" is a bit ambiguous/open-ended.

If "statistics" includes carrying capacity, then you would lose 1 carrying capacity for every 2 points of damage, which doesn't make a lot of sense. If you want to apply the wording of the FAQ in reverse, that would mean that temporary decreases to your Strength score would affect all statistics associated with Strength. This is exactly what happens, but Strength damage isn't a decrease to your Strength score.

I think that's the same FAQ that Googleshng linked. That is still describing an actual increase to your ability score, whereas Ability Damage is explicitly defined as not changing the associated score.

I admit I'm not totally confident in my interpretation, but the way I read it, ability damage wouldn't reduce carrying capacity.

Someone pointed out "Leadership" can be a dirty word at some tables. I agree.

I was hoping an Investigator side-kick talent-tree/archetype could give some unique uses for the companion (like storing inspiration, or acting as a spell book, or providing daily-re-rolls) that apply in clever ways for the investigator. Not just to improve upon Leadership. Most agree leadership is too powerful unless house ruled appropriately.

There are of course other ways to do it (as you mentioned above)--but if it's class specific we might see even more fun (and balanced) additions to game play.

I think that the reason that Leadership is a dirty word in some tables (and doesn't work will with organized play) is that multiple characters tend to slow down the game and hog the spotlight. There are other reasons why that might be the issue (power level depending on build), but those go a long way for giving something the ban hammer in some play spaces.

While I'm not ruling out potential archetype options, for the most part I think we will just let Leadership do its job and not create a group of talents that does a similar job that would have most of the same problems that Leadership has among some groups.

A talent does seem like a strange way to do that, but what about a variant leadership feat like Squire or Torchbearer? A restricted version that can be taken at lower levels, and offers some flavor specific to "assistants" or "apprentices". Maybe, as mentioned above, let this feat use int for leadership score, since it seems appropriate for Wizards as well.

In answer to the calls that the Arcanist is fragile at low level, and that the blast exploits are weak;

Instead of increasing damage, to compete with the spells of [caster level/2] she has available, and making the class more of a glass cannon, how about if the blast exploits provided a corresponding temporary resistance to their own energy type?

Using flame arc therefore causes small fires to erupt from her skin, dying down in the next round (or two?). During this time, she gains fire resistance of [level], deals [level/2] fire damage to grappling creatures, and is immune the automatic damage from fire-susceptible swarms.

It adds a small amount of survivability, to the low-level arcanist, at no extra cost. Very useful when she has only one or two exploits to her name.
It protects them from some low-level spell damage and other attack forms that are bad news to a caster. A goblin may not know the flames are temporary, and would hesitate to pin her for a coup de gras, and swarms are bad news for any low-level group.

I don't think blasts are so bad now that the save does not reduce the damage (it only stops the secondary effect, right?). However, that does little to help them at low levels when they have so few AR points.

It is bad damage. Ask anyone that ever played a Warlock.

At 10th level you are going to do 5d6 with fire (best one). That averages 17.5 damage. That IS really pathetic damage for a 10th level character, especially since other classes will be doing more than one attack. Further, at higher levels you have more spells, so the likelihood that crappy damage is ever going to look appealing becomes less and less. You also have better ways to spend those AR points, such as increasing the DC on a spell by 2.

I'd rather see them as unlimited use, spend an AR for an additional effect. You'll see them replace Crossbows at low levels, but the use will still peter out to little to nothing at higher ones....

How would you increase the damage to make it viable? Maybe add your int modifier to the damage? That would boost it, but it wouldn't improve the scaling all that much....

I would also love to see them unlimited. I'd also be fine with boosting the damage and compensating by targeting regular AC (though there's not really much precedent for that, so it probably won't happen).

I like the blasts a lot, conceptually, so I'd love to see them turned into a desirable choice.

(as an aside: is it odd that critical miss options rarely seem to make you "confirm" the critical miss).

Most games I've played had some form of confirmation.

My current TT calls for a reflex save after a 1 to avoid a fumble, one before that was attack roll again, if it misses, you fumble.

It's interesting; I don't actually have an official fumble house rule, but whenever my players roll a 1 on an attack, they immediately roll to "confirm" the fumble. If they roll a second 1, they generally expect something bad to happen. It's rare enough that I don't even remember what I did the last time it happened, but apparently the players like the rule.

monks would cry for a great many things that let them actually pull off the unarmed combat bit (or really any combat bit, zen archer and tetori notwithstanding), tels. decent crit range is just one of them.

I'm well aware, but I felt someone had to point it out. I don't know if it will factor into the Warpriest design, but it should at least be mentioned.

We just need some kind of archetype that loses armor proficiency and gains wisdom to AC, and we could make some pretty awesome Warpriests of Irori.

-_-

You must be one of Cosmo's minions.

I have successfully discovered a minion of Cosmo!

For the record, I blame Cosmo for wanting more things taken from the Monk.

If we blame Cosmo for all problems, does that make us all minions of Cosmo?

monks would cry for a great many things that let them actually pull off the unarmed combat bit (or really any combat bit, zen archer and tetori notwithstanding), tels. decent crit range is just one of them.

I'm well aware, but I felt someone had to point it out. I don't know if it will factor into the Warpriest design, but it should at least be mentioned.

We just need some kind of archetype that loses armor proficiency and gains wisdom to AC, and we could make some pretty awesome Warpriests of Irori.

monks would cry for a great many things that let them actually pull off the unarmed combat bit (or really any combat bit, zen archer and tetori notwithstanding), tels. decent crit range is just one of them.

I'm well aware, but I felt someone had to point it out. I don't know if it will factor into the Warpriest design, but it should at least be mentioned.

We just need some kind of archetype that loses armor proficiency and gains wisdom to AC, and we could make some pretty awesome Warpriests of Irori.

A. All sacred weapons have a standard crit range and multiplier (19-20/x2 or maybe 20/x3)?

B. Whenever a sacred weapon scores a crit, all of the additional damage is based off the original weapon damage?

C. It works as is (weapon damage scales, crit stats are drawn from the weapon, which means some will crit more often, but only for x2, others rarely but for x3)

So....

1. Which is easiest to use?
2. Which is the most balanced?
3. Which is the most fun?

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer

That said, now that we get the freedom to choose, I think it might be reasonable to scratch the damage increase. Since we get to pick what we want, nobody is in a tight spot they can't get out of, unless they put themselves in that spot. The problem with the original class was that it pretty arbitrarily stuck some warpriests in a tight spot, while others got on fine.

This problem only really needed one of two fixes, and I think giving them both is a mistake, as it leads to new problems.

Except that then Warpriest who actually want to use their favored weapon (when it's an "underpowered" choice) are back where they started. I suggested this earlier in the thread, but I think it might make sense to put the damage increase only on your actual favored weapon, and let other sacred weapons fall where they may. Then you're encouraged to use your favored weapon, but other weapons are still a good choice (greatsword still smashes faces).

3. I started to put C, but that was my mind assuming that 'optimal damage output = most fun'. I'm not really sure how to answer this one.

This is a good point. C is the most fun if you're using a weapon that takes advantage of it. Otherwise, A is probably the most fun, because it frees you up to choose a weapon because it's cool or thematic, without caring what the stats on it are. A friend of mine plays a D20 variant (I don't remember the name) where this is just a fact of weapons. They all do the same damage, so weapon choice is purely an aesthetic decision. He speaks very highly of this feature, and to a degree I can see why.